Arab in America -The Movie!

The History of Arab (pt.1 of many)

// November 19th, 2008 // Making Arab

Most of my first few posts will try to get everyone up to speed on the constant roller coaster that has been Arab in America.  We’re kind of starting this blog late in the game (over 2 years since we started the project) so there’s a lot of ground to catch up…

I can remember it like it was yesterday…  Here, lets set the scene a bit.  Close your eyes and think of Savannah, Georgia, USA.  If you’ve never been to Savannah, think of heaven, take away a little bit of beauty, add in some old, and and top it off with a horrible paper mill smell.  Anyway, it was the spring of 2006.  I had just broken up with my girlfriend and started working at an Italian Chain restaurant (lets call it Karrabba’s).  I was kind of going through a little dilemma at the time…  No, it wasn’t because I had just lost my girlfriend (I was pretty relieved about it, actually) nor was it because I was getting tired of having extra virgin olive oil spilled all over my clothes (the smell stays even after multiple showers)…

My senior year was fast approaching and I had to make a movie to graduate the Savannah College of Art and Design.  I already had a hilariously, dorky screenplay that my entire Advanced Writing Class loved and couldn’t wait for me to make…  The problem?  My crew.  Ever since I was a Sophomore in college, I’ve worked with the same two people on every movie I made.  Tim Bryan and Jason Wheeler.  Tim was my DP (director of photography).  Any project or movie I wanted to make, Tim was there to light it and Jason was there to film it (camera op).  And whenever they needed help on their projects, of course, I would lend my services (writer, director, lugging equipment, getting the coffee, etc.).  When you find people that you work well together, you don’t want to lose them.  You want to keep working with them as long as possible.  And my latest “stroke of genius” wasn’t sitting too well with my crew-mates.

I believe that Tim’s exact words were, “Why am I mad?  Because you screwed me, that’s why I’m mad!”.  Tim had partnered with me through some pretty horrible projects because he believed that I had something in me.  He thought I had some amazing story in my brain that would make an incredible movie and he’d be there to make it happen.  And at the time, for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what Tim’s problem was with my screenplay.  I mean, everyone in my Writing Class liked it.  My friends and family liked it.  Even my professors liked it.

The screenplay in question was titled, Assassinate George.  It was the story of two fed up twenty-something nerds that got so pissed at George Lucas for screwing up the new Star Wars prequels, that they decided to go on a cross-country trip to kill George Lucas before he messes up the Original Trilogy.  Tim referred to the project as a “dumb fan-film” and insisted “that’s not the reason I came to film school.”

So, it’s Sunday morning and I’m standing in my Karrabba’s-wait-staff-attire, cleaning my section, and getting ready for the church crowd to come in and tip me like poop when it hit me…  I called my high school friend, Jamie Gaar (he’s since changed his name after getting married to Jamie Hawkins-Gaar, please give him crap for it) and quickly pitched the idea to him.

If I remember correctly, it was a story of an alien abduction set in 15 BC.  The abductees turned out to be our religious prophets (David, Abraham, Moses, etc.) who in turn, dictated what was told to them from the aliens…  At the time I thought it was hilarious.  Since then, I only find it a mildly-entertaining observation.  Jamie quickly stopped me in the middle of my pitch and told me to stop.  I guess after listening to fifteen super-cliché pitches he’d had enough.

“Nabil,” he said, “just write about what you know.  It’ll be personal and it’ll be funny.  It’ll be everything you want it to be because it’s yours and you know it.  Now stop calling me, I’m at work.”

For the rest of the shift I was in a daze.  Handing customers their drinks and taking their orders there was only one thing that was constantly spinning through my mind.  A title…  Arab in America.

-Nabil